Issues in Designing Learning by Teaching Systems

Learning by teaching systems are a relatively recent approach to designing Intelligent Learning Environments that place learners in the role of tutors. These systems are based on the practice of peer tutoring where students take on defined roles of tutor and tutee. An architecture for learning by teaching systems is described that does not require the domain model of an Intelligent Tutoring System. However a mutual communication language is needed and is defined by a conceptual syntax that delimits the domain content of the dialogue. An example learning by teaching system is described for the domain of qualitative economics. The construction and testing of this system inform a discussion of the major design issues involved: the nature of the learnt model, the form of the conceptual syntax, the control of the interaction and the possible introduction of domain knowledge.